“The Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D’s images contain a lot of detail, but the default in-camera sharpening settings leave the finest detail a little soft-looking, and there’s just a hint of a “halo” along strongly contrasting edges. The resulting images take unsharp masking in Photoshop or other image-processing program well, but you’ll want to dial down the in-camera sharpening to get the best results with post-exposure unsharp masking. At low ISOs, the Maxxum 5D’s noise suppression system seems to do a pretty good job of preserving detail in areas of subtle contrast, although you can still see some sign of its operation.

The Maxxum 5D handles very well, looks good, and feels solid. Images at up to ISO 800 are very usable even at 8×10 inch print sizes, which is a good benchmark. It offers a useful focal length range in the kit lens, with very high optical quality, but its big attraction is its in-camera image stabilization, extending low light shooting to nearly any lens you can mount on it. Considering that this system effectively turns all your lenses into anti-shake models, the higher cost of the 5D’s body relative to competing models seems very well justified. Negative points were relatively minor (depending, of course, on the type of shooting you’re looking to do) – A slight tendency to underexpose, particularly when confronted with scenes having strong highlights, an occasionally hesitant AF system, and a tendency to lose subtle subject detail at high ISOs. All in all, the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D is a very solid choice for anyone looking at the current field of digital SLRs…”